Harvest of Quilts - Oct 1st and 2nd

My Flying Geese Quilt Guild is gearing up for our 2011.  I have been gathering volunteers or all the fun jobs that we do at the show.  People have really come out to help.  We have the 4H Club comming to help with the white gloving and I am so looking forward to working with the young quilters.

http://www.flyinggeese.net/quiltshow.htm

On my way to deliver mine and my Mom's quilts right now.  

If you find yourself in Southern California next weekend, stop in!  Its going to be a wonderful show.   Come and introduce yourself to me, I'll be the one running around looking like I've been drinking too much coffee ;]

Hope you get sew this weekend!

Love Aunti Nicole

Quilts of Valor

On Monday, July 11th, my Flying Geese Quilt Guild had a sew in for Quilts of Valor.  This is a foundation whose goals is to make quilts for service members and veterans touched by wartime.  We had a great turn out and some beautiful quilts were lovingly put together, every one with the utmost care.

We had a great turnout with about 50 people and had a pot luck dinner and snacks to keep us fortified.  I have no idea how many quilts were created by the end but the results were amazing.  Quilts of Valor had a representative there who provided kits of blocks and fabric to put them together.  I believe some of the blocks were created by our members as well.  

I am so proud of the work done by our guild.  They are such an amazing group of women and all of them ready to lend a hand.  Please check out Quilts of Valor to see the wonderful work that this group is doing for our men and women.

Have a wonderful week.
Love
Aunti
Nicole

Gradient Fabric Dying Workshop with Joy-Lily

Last Sunday my Flying Geese Guild hosted this class at Bear's Quilt Shop in Garden Grove.  We were to bring 3 white or white on white fat quarters and wear our work clothes.  

While there were about 16+ people  we didn't make as much of a mess as one might think.  We had a great time and cool fabric was made by all.

Joy-Lily was a lot of fun and she explained about the birds and bees of fabric dyeing.  She also came to our guild Monday night to share her gallery of art with such a variety of mediums.  For a special treat, visit http://www.joy-lily.com/ to see her beautiful gallery.

For this project we used hair color bottles of dye that was cut in half and half again to get the different gradients.  The soda ash was added at the end and then they were set in the sun for a bit and then rinsed.

For the first one we just kept it simple.  I used a white on white print and a magenta color.  I can see using this for applique flowers how the petals are dark and light.  Also Joy-Lily had some great ideas for putting together gradients in pieced quilts.

So here is he back.....

For our next one, we experimented a little.  I used another white on while and let the fabric print decide where the dye needed to go.  I used mostly blue with a hint of red dye for this one.

...and as my friend Hilary pointed out even the back looks good.  I could see using this softer version of the print for a complely different look.

Ok so this next one is why you don't just run screaming through the room with fabric dye!  By this time, I was just twisting and playing.  Another white on white, that I did without really think about the color combination, eek.  

In his case the back looks a little better.  

Watch the ugly one get the most use, HA!  Isn't that just the way.

A little plug for Bear's Quilt Shop in Garden Grove, CA  A great place to learn fabric dying among other quilty things.  They have a lot of great samples and do classes on demand for small groups.  A bunch of us are thinking about visit them this summer for another fabric dying workshop.

Thanks for stopping by!

Aunti Nicole

Dresden Delight

My EZ Quilter's friendship group has made this beautiful Dresden plate quilt for our Flying Geese Guild Auction on October 23rd 2010.  http://www.flyinggeese.net/auction10.html 

Each EZQ member made 2 blocks and passed it around for hand quilting.  Those who don't like to hand quilt did sashing, borders and binding and....

The pillowcase was embroidered with Dresden Delight.

I love the way the quilt turned out absolutely stunning and I am so proud to be a member in the group of incredibly talented and creative quilters.  Great Job Ladies.